Glenmore-Keswick perimeter, March 1, 2014

This hike was 7.6 miles, led by “officially” first time hike leader Kelly O’Rourke (no one was scared though ) and yes, she is well trained and follows very large footsteps and high standards set before her by the high steppn’ Charlottesville chapter hike leaders, and thereby passed out some much appreciated Hershey chocolate candy bars at lunch!

Ok- about the hike/attendees:

It was a chilly 28 degrees when we left the high school, but a great time was had by all! Hike participants Brad Young, David Crowe, Sunny Choi, Leon Gorman, Jeanne Densmore, CJ Woodburn, and Charles Staples met/drove to Glenmore and set out from Kelly/Charles house ~ 9:45 to walk the perimeter of Glenmore. The hike started out in the woods along the Rivanna River for ~ half mile and then continued along the river on one side and the golf course on the other. This trail is also the equestrian trail, and though we did not see anyone riding on the trail, we did see a rider jumping in the training ring near the main entrance. There are a lot of twists/turns as the trail winds thru the woods, golf course, and around the outskirts of the development. We had a short lunch break at a remote spot where we didn’t see any houses (yes, there are some places like that!). We saw evidence of a beaver hard at work eating many trees along Carroll creek, but never saw the little critter. The trail goes along the front of the entrance; passes the horses then ducks back into the woods were we had to cross ~ 5 streams. It was a little muddy (as the hike leader had diligently warned it would be!), but luckily we had not had any rain for a while so the water was pretty low and posed no real problem. The trail ends back at the Rivanna, and in ~ .2 miles we were back where we started. Special thanks to Jeanne for volunteering to diligently track the mileage and answer Kelly’s incessant - “how many miles now Jeanne” along the way….and to Brad for finding and carrying out an old Pepsi bottle he found along the stream.

Pictures taken along the Rivanna river and one in front of the golf course stream crossing (when we were were lining up to take the picture Charles mentioned that many of his golf balls were in that stream).

We all agreed that this was a fun, interesting, and mostly flat local hike that gets us done early, but has enough river/woods/stream crossings to make it acceptable as a good alternative for local cold weather hike.